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Creating a Religiously Tolerant Society-Avoiding a “Bah, Hambug!” Holiday Attitude

One of the perennial questions that seem to divide Americans is the question whether there is a place for displaying religious symbols on public properties. Advocates for displaying such items claim that religious symbols add toward the holiday festivities—after all the United States has always celebrated its holidays in this manner, why should we break with what has become a true American tradition?

On the other hand, there are those who take a critical view of this issue; they insist that ...

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Categories: Anti-Semitism, biblical history, Hassidic Theology

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Is vegetarianism the ultimate ideal for humankind?

With all the commotion being made about laboratory created meat, the new technological development raises interesting ethical questions whether the slaughtering of animals ought to even be continued, since artificial meat is available. Should the practice of kosher slaughter be continued? Obviously, none of us can expect to know the future. Time will tell whether such a meat alternative is even considered healthy for human consumption. That being said, if the technology can truly replicate meat in a safe and ...

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Categories: Bible, Halacha, Jewish Law & Technology, Judaism and Ecology, Theology and Philosophy

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What is the kosher status of laboratory “grown” meat?

Technology continues to dazzle the halachic imagination in ways that our ancestors could not have ever imagined. Researchers in the Netherlands managed to create soggy pork and are looking into ways of improving its texture so that it might be an edible alternative to eating real meat. To date, nobody has yet to taste the meat to see how it fares, but assuming that it is tasty, rabbis will have to determine whether it is fit for kosher consumption or ...

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Categories: Bible, biblical history, biblical theology, Contrarian wisdom, Current Events, Halacha, Jewish Law & Technology, Judaism and Ecology, Talmud, Zohar, and Midrash

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Jacob’s Complicated Love Life and its Halachic implications

Inevitably, the story about Jacob and his complicated love life raises a number of questions regarding the Jewish attitude concerning concubines and polygamy. Do Jews still practice polygamy? Outside Sephardic circles, polygamy has been banned for well over a thousand years, since the time Rabbanu Gershom outlawed it for Ashkenazic Jews.

Historically, there is no evidence of actual concubinage in the Talmud, nor is there any evidence of it in practice during the Middle Ages. In the responsa of Asher b. ...

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Categories: Bible, biblical history, Contrarian wisdom, Current Events, ethics, good and evil, Halacha, Judaism and Feminism

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What did Jacob see in his vision at Beth El?

What did Jacob actually see when he had his mystical vision? Was it a ladder? Or was it a ziggurat? It all depends on how one wishes to translate the noun סֻלָּם (sulam).

Classical translations think it is a heavenly ladder, but more modern translations prefer ziggurat. For example, the NJPS translation renders it “He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground”[1] The ladder imagery may reflect a Babylonian and Egyptian influence. The word סֻלָּם (sulam = ...

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Categories: Bible, biblical history, biblical theology, Jewish symbolism, Theology and Philosophy

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